1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to racks and enclosures, and more particularly to a data center air containment system that provides an integrated solution for supporting piping, ductwork, raceways and cable trays containing wires, cables, and other means of conveyance of electricity, thermal energy, data and other transferrable media.
2. Discussion of Related Art
To control the flow of air throughout a data center, and to optimize the airflow through equipment racks provided in the data center, it may be desirable to contain the air in hot and cold aisles to conserve energy and to lower cooling cost by managing airflow. As a result, hot aisle containment systems have been developed to contain and manage air within the hot aisle. Cold air containment systems have been developed as well.
The prevailing structures and methods for air containment within data centers are limited to containment structures that are self-supporting or supported by other data center equipment, e.g., equipment racks. These containment structures have limited or no provisions for supporting the weight of other related and necessary data center pipes, ducts, wiring and hardware. The prevailing methods of installing such equipment include hanging the equipment from overhead structures associated with data center, placing the equipment on top of IT racks and equipment cabinets, or running the equipment under an accessible floor, separate from the structural floor of the building.
It is known that IT equipment maintained in a data center or other dedicated computing environment will almost always require additional dedicated cooling to supplement typical building comfort cooling to maintain an appropriate inlet air temperature for computing equipment. Over the years, data center cooling technologies and methodologies have taken many forms, and have evolved as the way data centers are designed, deployed, and maintained has also changed.
Historically, one data center cooling method has been under-floor cooling, in which large computer room air conditioners (CRACs) or computer room air handlers (CRAHs) stand on the perimeter of the room and force cooled air under the raised floor and into a plenum, as the tiles are supported a distance of twelve to thirty-six inches off of a foundation or floor of the room. Perforated tiles strategically placed in front of the equipment racks holding the IT equipment allow this air to escape the plenum and flood the area in front of the equipment rack with appropriately cooled temperature. The return air, now heated from the IT equipment, eventually makes it back to the CRAC unit and the cycle begins again. This method was not rigidly tied to a particular IT deployment methodology, as the perforated tiles could be substituted in front of any rack.
One advancement in data center thermal management was in close-coupled cooling (otherwise known as “in-row cooling”), in which the CRACs and CRAHs were no longer placed along a perimeter of the room, but were positioned directly against the IT equipment hosted in racks, typically arranged in an in-row fashion. This cooling methodology required a more rigid deployment of IT equipment, in that the close-coupled cooling was most effective in hot aisle and cold aisle arrangements.
Aisle containment is now part of a common IT deployment and cooling strategy, in which the aforementioned hot and cold aisles might be physically contained to prevent mixing of hot return air and cold supply air. Mixing hot air with cold air causes the data center cooling system to run less efficiently. The cooling methodologies have changed little, though. Currently, supplying air to or returning air from a contained aisle uses fully decoupled systems in which the ductwork that moves the air is suspended from the building infrastructure itself and the containment system is largely blind to the conveyance of air through the ductwork.
In addition, cable trays are used to create a pathway and to provide protection to wires installed between termination points, and are an alternative to electrical conduits. Cable trays can generally include an assembly or weldment used to support electrical wiring used for power distribution and communications. Traditional cable trays may include solid bottoms, or constructed in a style of a metal basket. Other cable trays include a “ladder” tray in which the cables are supported by bars that look like the rungs of a ladder. Other embodiments of cable trays may include solid or ventilated covers that offer protection to the cables from the types of hazards deemed most probable during installation, and during the service life of the cables placed within the tray.